


The Eyes of a Demon

by illunaria



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Darkling POV, F/M, POV Third Person Limited, Prompt Fic, it's impossible to write first person Darkling, so take this instead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 03:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8312188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illunaria/pseuds/illunaria
Summary: The Darkling is told that a Sun Summoner has appeared on the Fold. Now he must test her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is for a prompt request that's been sitting in my Tumblr inbox for far too long. So have fun reading this snippet of chapter three of Shadow and Bone told from a different perspective!

She was a mousy little thing.

The Darkling cradled his chin on the back of his hand as Alina Starkov, the supposed Sun Summoner, approached the dais. Raevsky was speaking in low murmurs in his ear: how the girl was the Senior Cartographer's assistant, how she was an orphan from Keramzin, how the reports said she shone like the full moon on the darkest of nights.

His eyes roamed her spindly figure, her sallow cheeks, the dark circles under her eyes, her brittle hair, and he knew. This was a Grisha whose great power had been snuffed underneath the life of an _otkazat'sya_. She was drowning in her First Army uniform when she should be swathed in a mass of black silk.

When the bedraggled survivors shuffled into the tent and the captain gave his report on what happened on the Fold, followed by the Cartographer's own timid accounts, the crowd of Grisha erupted with a spew of protests and arguments with one another.

"Quiet." The Darkling barely raised his voice, but the command cut through and demanded silence that was given in a moment's time.

He directed his attention to the boy standing amidst the other survivors with his shirt stained red and skin pale from blood-loss. "Tracker," he said softly, "what did you see?"

The boy looked once at Alina before raising his eyes to the Darkling. Something rang familiar in his face, though he brushed the feeling away and waited for his answer.

"Nothing. I didn't see anything."

_Lies._

"The girl was right beside you," the Darkling, his voice a smooth caress. The boy nodded once, prompting the Grisha leader to continue, "you must have seen something."

The tracker looked again at Alina, his face pale and tired yet tight with worry. The Darkling could tell he only wished to protect his friend, keep her safe from the alleged sinister Darkling.

_A foolish move, but admirable. He acts on heart but not on mind._

"Just tell us what you remember, tracker," Raevsky commanded at his side.

To answer, the boy shrugged and winced at the pain from his wounds. "I was on my back on the deck. Alina was next to me. I saw the volcra diving, and I knew it was coming for us. I said something and–"

"What did you say?" The Darkling hissed, curiosity alight in his eyes.

_Perhaps something that would trigger her power. Fight or flight response. Something sentimental, no doubt._

"I don't remember," the boy said with a stubborn set in his jaw. _Another lie._ "I smelled the volcra, saw it swooping down on us. Alina screamed and then I couldn't see anything. The world was just ... shining."

"So you didn't see where the light was coming from?" Raevsky asked.

"Alina isn't ... She couldn’t ..." he trailed off, shaking his head. "We're from the same ... village. If she could do anything like that, I would know."

The Darkling kept his steel gaze trained on the tracker for a long moment before turning his attention back to Alina.

"We all have our secrets," he purred, holding one hand up as the boy opened his mouth to argue. The Darkling studied her further as he rose and descended the steps. The guards parted, leaving no one between them. She looked ready to disappear into her own shell, making herself smaller than she was with her head ducked down and her eyes downcast as he approached.

Already he could see potential. She was a girl who yearned for more, more approval and more attention and less of wasted potential. "Now, what do you say, Alina Starkov?" he drawled, the name leaving a sweet taste in his mouth.

She stiffened, trembling under his assessing gaze. "There's been some kind of mistake," she said hoarsely. "I didn't do anything. I don't know how we survived."

The Darkling crossed his arms and tilted his head slightly in mock consideration. "Well," he said bemused, "I like to think that I know everything that happens in Ravka, and that if I had a Sun Summoner living in my own country, I'd be aware of it." Soft murmurs skittered across the crowd, but he ignored them and continued to watch Alina closely. "But something powerful stopped the volcra and saved the King's skiffs."

He paused, waiting expectantly for another denial.

To his delight, she rose her chin stubbornly and said, "I didn't do anything. Not one thing."

His lips twitched as his eyes slid over her from head to toe and back again, drinking in every detail, every chink in potential power. "Is your memory as faulty as your friend's?" he asked, nodding his head toward the tracker.

"I don't ..." She looked down, her brows knitting together as uncertainty clouded her eyes.

"Hold out your arm," he said lowly.

Alina looked back at him in both alarm and confusion. "What?"

"We've wasted enough time. Hold out your arm."

She was still shaking as she obeyed his command and raised her arm out towards him.

"Push up your sleeve," his lips barely moved with the words, his eyes connecting with hers in one intimate moment, a moment for her to bare herself to him.

Alina whimpered, "I didn't do anything." Still, she relented and pushed her sleeve up, exposing her porcelain skin that looked ripe for breaking.

With a pleased passing through his slate eyes, the Darkling spread his arms out and let his palms fill with inky darkness, the wisps undulating and eager to do his bidding. "Now, let's see what you can do."

He brought his hands together and relished the sound of the thunderclap as darkness spread forth from him and spilled over Alina and the crowd. The atmosphere tensed with anticipation he was much familiar with. It was routine after so many lifetimes. Yet this was a different sort of silence.

It was tense not only with anticipation, but a strange sort of hope.

His fingers left a feather-light trail down her forearm before closing around her wrist.

A deep hunger clouded his unseeing eyes.

His power seeped into her skin, searching for a light, for any cooled embers that had long been smothered. The Darkling took a step closer, leaving only an inch of space to soon be filled if she would only submit.

She was pushing back, stomping on those died embers he wished to incite. He would give her power life, let it burn, let it destroy her from the inside out before he rebuilt her in his image. If only she would let him.

"Nothing there?" he murmured, his lips close to her ear.

Her pulse thrummed underneath his fingertips in a panic. She was trying to convince herself that there was nothing, but soon that nothing would burst into everything.

The Darkling allowed a smirk to curl on the edge of his lips as he pulled a knife from the inside of his _kefta_ with his free hand. "Not so fast," he whispered just before pressing the blade on the inside of her forearm, slicing a shallow wound into her skin.

_There it is._

He felt it swell and billow against his darkness. It sped to his beck and call.

The Darkling first saw her eyes fill with luminescent light before her skin blazed with the radiance of the sun in high noon. The room exploded into gleaming white light, shattering the dark and leaving awed faces illuminated with shining sunlight that made the air thick with heat.

In that moment, he wanted to shove her to her knees and stake his claim.

He let go.

Ordinary candlelight took the place of brilliant sunlight as Alina collapsed, the Darkling catching her with one arm.

"I guess you only look like a mouse."


End file.
